


The Beginning Of An Unequivocal Mess

by starsand90ssoftdrinks (SuperNovaWriting)



Series: Flaws of Numeric Systems [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Citizens Vs Government, Eventual Romance, Fluff and Angst, Government, Humor, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Swearing, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-28 18:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19399663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperNovaWriting/pseuds/starsand90ssoftdrinks
Summary: Like most young adult fiction featuring a romantic plot, this one does include the destruction of the Government.This Chapter:You are introduced to Lance Callahan, Lucifer Morningstar of the current human race.You are also introduced to Sorren Underwood, Messiah of the Modern Day.Both boys do not quite enjoy being the two ends of a messy, fucked up, spectrum. So as all teenagers decided to do, they plot to overthrow the government.





	The Beginning Of An Unequivocal Mess

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in so long man,,,,i hope you like these funky fresh lil dudes.

Merriam-Webster dictionary states that the word “Unequivocal” may mean one of two things: the clear unambiguousness of a scene or situation, or something being undeniably unquestionable. Though, this word is best used when not applied to government systems. As many conspiracy theorists and local crazy people may tell you, the government sees all and controls your every move. As normal citizens, we are generally unable to avoid the presence of some form of control from our fellow man. However, these people may also tell you there is a force at work, something akin to a god. This story is not about a god, or something akin to it, this is a very simple story of overthrowing an oppressive government which turns out to be much less simple after all. 

The Mockingbird Boarding School of The World’s Most Dangerous Youths houses the sixth most dangerous person in history. This is strange, considering that this boy is barely over five feet tall, and all his clothes seem to be much too large for him. Though the System Of Classifying Childhood Morality, which is usually called the SOCK test despite there being no “K” in the original acronym, had not yet been invented it is just the general public assumption that there have been five of the most awful breed of person walking the earth before this boy. However, these five are often argued about amongst many people of different times and cultures. 

This universe is abruptly different from yours, as somewhere in the 17th-century people began developing very odd abilities. It was very gradual, and at first, it was discovered and used by women classified as witches. The powers, however, became much more prevalent as we came to the turn of the century. Now, when we speak of the boy who is regarded as the evilest being currently alive and he is called a “Ten”, this does not refer to his dashing looks, despite growing up to be quite handsome. This refers to his placement on the SOCK scale, which reaches from zero to ten, most resting in the four to seven range and being allowed to live amongst regular people. The lower your score, much like golf, means you figuratively “win” at life and literally win at golf. 

And so we open, September 1st, 2019, at The Mockingbird Boarding School of The World’s Most Dangerous Youths. The name of our “Ten” is Lance, which is a particularly non-threatening name in the context of human baby names. It is important to mention that he is not named for the weapon called a “Lance”, his full name is Lancelot who is most well known for being a mythical adulterer and round table knight. It is extremely uncool and not badass to be named after an adulterer. His fellow students avoid him like the plague. If you saw him, you’d be very confused by the actions of his peers. His hair is long and dark, pulled into a ponytail, and not at all threatening. His frame is small and his uniform never seems to fit quite right, bunching uncomfortably around his small wrists. The most threatening part of him was a myriad of scars which you could only fully see if he were stripped down to his underwear. This image is inappropriate, so we won’t speak of it anymore but instead follow Lance. His dormitory is large and despite there being two large comfortable beds, with soft and plush deep red sheets, only he seems to live there. He has very obviously not slept at all, and at eight in the morning, he shrugs on a uniform and walks out of his room with only a pencil in his hair and a very large book in his hand. 

He maneuvers through the halls as if he were a snake, slithering through people, eyes never leaving the page. Never once does he bump into someone, but this is more their part than his. Students have learned to be wary of him, only a very small few were respected by him, and none were liked. Despite much preferential treatment at the school, Lance was somewhat nihilistic about the world around him. Teachers fawned over him, students gave him their undying respect, and the Dean of the school was Mr. Atticus Wormwood, Lance’s adoptive father. He sits at a table in a large cafeteria and nearly passes out into the plate that has been brought to him by his table mates. Or, one table mate in particular.

Lance had amassed a very large following of exactly three people whom he secretly saw as friends. He slammed his head onto the table, snapping his book shut, and his plate is gently moved by a very strange looking hand.  
“Careful!” Says a very sweet voice, coming from the body of that strange hand, “What’s got you bothered, Lancey-Pants?”  
There is no hint of sarcasm or malice in her tone, her voice is gentle and loving. Lance turns his head and looks up exhaustedly at a concerned looking girl. Her curly black hair is pulled into a very low ponytail to keep it out of her way, and thick-rimmed glasses sit atop her wide nose. Her eyes are unnaturally green, like plant life growing a new under the spring sun, and she brings up a hand to touch Lance’s cheek.  
“Were you reading the Odyssey again?” She asks, large lips with red lipstick moving in slow motion in Lance’s mind. “You know how you get when you read The Odyssey!”

Lance simply nods, handing her the book and smushing his face back into the cold metal. A stark laugh comes from right in front of him, across the table. He doesn’t unsmush his face. If we take a look at the table, there are five seats but four people. Three friends, sitting in a busy cafeteria, watching their unofficial leader smush his face into a table after reading The Odyssey for the fifteenth time and have an unusually emotional display of his thoughts.  
“Guess our favourite bibliophile is having a breakdown, the Odyssey?” A new voice asks, it seems to ring like a bell and spark with energy despite her tone being static.  
Bringing up his head Lance grunts and slouches down, lounging in the uncomfortable wood and metal chair. He looks around the cafeteria, just taking in the warm earthy tones, after a deep breath he starts to eat. 

Nobody speaks again until the first girl pipes up about some gardening techniques that Lance barely has half the mind to listen to. He keeps thinking about the damn Odyssey, he doesn’t know why he keeps reading it over and over. It always reminds him of his mother, just the thought of her makes him physically shake the thought from his mind.  
“Y’know,” Speaks the second female voice, “After two months without us I figured Lance would at least say ‘Hi’.”  
“I say just let him mope,” The boy remarks, as Lance’s eyes trail over to the pair. He looks at the girl much more briefly, her eyes an icy blue with shoulder-length straight brown hair, and a muscular build. She tosses him a lollipop, he takes it thankfully and pops it into his mouth. The boy catches his attention and the lollipop almost falls from his lips. The last time Lance saw this boy, his hair was a deep honey coloured auburn. He found it quite nice, but his friend had always complained about wanting it bright red. Now, it was. His sides were shaved, and he had a very fitting tuft of poofy hair at the top of his head.  
“Your hair…” Lance mutters out with a bit of disgust, “You ruined it.”  
His friend laughs, a loud hearty laugh, and remarks back quickly, “You look like a homeless man, shut up!”  
If he was being honest with himself, he did quite like the red, but he appreciated the former way it shone under summer sun when it was at its lightest. He always liked light hair.  
“It’s good to have you back, Ethan,” He nods at the boy, then at the lollipop girl, “Lauren.”

The final friend gave a soft pout, “Did you not miss me!?”  
She was simply given a look, which implied that both of them stayed at the school year round. She chuckled and turned the conversation back to Lance.  
“So the Odyssey, you read it again why?” She asks him, but with only the smallest hint of a know-it-all’s tone in her voice.  
In response, Lance shrugs. This receives three loudly voiced sighs from the table. He was never open, even with Sylvia who had been friends with him since he was nine years old. Trust was just something nobody could seem to get from him. There are often times though, where part of him shine through the bags under his cold eyes. On the last day of school the previous year, he had drawn beautiful portraits of his three friends and slipped them into their lockers without a word. 

This was often the same for both Ethan and Lauren. Both caring and affectionate but hurt by the past and unable to trust exactly the same. Sometimes though, all three of them would come out of their shell. The most pleasant memory all four of them had was on Sylvia’s 16th birthday the past spring, all four had snuck out to the lake on school grounds at eleven pm and went for a swim. After that, they snuck into the kitchen with Lance’s help and baked Sylvia a cake. They all laughed, smiled, and just felt at peace. Sylvia was usually considered the “black sheep” of the friend group, which she usually said about herself making a clever pun about both her demeanor and race. She was truly sweet, soft, and kind. While her three friends were rough and impulsive, she stood in as their voice of reason but was often dragged into their schemes. Once she even built them her own version of fireworks, with some help from Lance’s extensive knowledge of design. The only thing truly special thing about them was that they were much more explosive, but it was quite the engineering feat to keep them around the same size and shape while making them more powerful. 

“Fine,” Lance answers, “I just like the Odyssey, is that good enough?”  
Lauren smacks him upside the head, “We may be fucking stupid, but we’re smarter than that.”  
She was quite right, the whole lot of them were stupid, but in the way that all teenagers are. They liked to draw phallic objects on each other worksheets and make bad decisions for the hell of it. Breakfast occurs for another twenty minutes without any more Odyssey questions, which Lance is very thankful for. As Ethan and Lauren begin arguing over the possibility of alien life, Lance nearly falls out of his seat. Across the cafeteria was a face Lance seemed to hate, but perhaps that was just his expression. His eyes bore menacingly into the side of the head of a boy, but not just any boy, oh no. 

The name of this boy that Lance hates, is Sorren Underwood. His hair is golden blonde, resting in soft messy waves on his head. He has patterns of light freckles on his ears and his bit of exposed neck, but none on his cheeks. Staring at his eyes, you would first notice the warmth and kindness of them, before realizing they are a gentle summer sky blue. He’s tan and fit, and Lance cannot believe that this boy is in his school. The boy stands to leave and so does Lance.  
“Lance?” Sylvia asks, looking at him, then at where his gaze is resting.  
His glare bores into the back of Sorren’s head and without a word he follows him out of the cafeteria. 

He makes sure to be as inconspicuous as he can, always many feet behind him, and hiding behind different objects. Sorren seems to just be going to his locker, which he struggles to open. He tries his combination a few times before it unlocks and he lets out a small noise to display that he’s rather pleased with himself. Manipulating his locker door, he can look in his background in a small plastic framed magnetic mirror. Lance, however, cannot tell and gets the shock of his life when Sorren calls out directly to him.  
“I know you’re there, Lance.” He says, very nonchalantly, as if he didn’t just catch Lance following him.  
Instantly moving from behind a plant, Lance’s voice sounds like a defensive hiss, “What are you doing here?”  
Sorren shrugs, “Transferred.” he turns and gives Lance a kind smile.  
“You of all people should not be here.” He grumbles out, his eyes growing colder, glaring into Sorren’s chest so he doesn’t have to look up so far to see his face.  
“And you of all people are going to designate where I do and do not belong?” Sorren shoots back almost instantly, taking textbooks from his locker and placing them in his arms.  
“I-” Lance struggles to find a good comeback, Sorren was still as witty as their first meeting, “You suck.” 

Sorren only laughs, his laugh makes Lance’s heart speed up for a moment. He assures himself that hate can make your heart beat faster, his rage must be overflowing...right? The bell rings and Lance finds himself still standing by his side, people flood the hallways and conveniently people avoid them both. Lance and Sorren both attribute it to Lance’s presence.  
“Which class do you have first?” Sorren asks, closing up his locker then giving him a small smile.  
“Like I’d tell you. I’m not spending any more time fraternizing with the enemy.” He spits at him, tone trying to be mean but it comes out more unsure than he meant. Sorren gives him a smirk and a raised eyebrow which manages to coax the answer out of him.  
“Classic Lit.” He answers, mumbling under his breath, but Sorren still hears.  
“Me too! Walk me?” Sorren seems much too sweet for Lance’s liking and much too accepting of Lance’s dislike of him. At least he hasn’t yet seemed afraid.  
“Only to make sure you don’t try anything.” Folding his arms over his chest, Lance begins walking and is followed by a perfectly content looking Sorren.

All throughout the class, Lance can’t focus. Classic Lit only had one more person than last year, and that was Sorren. He sat right next to lance and paid attention excellently, which is more than Lance can say. If we want to explain Lance’s behavior, we must also explain the origins of Sorren Underwood. When we speak of Sorren and call him a “Zero”, much like Lance we do not mean that he is horribly ugly, he actually looks quite pleasing to the eye. What it means in this context is that he and Lance are destined to be the world’s force of true moral purity, and true moral corruption. This is why Lance is more suspicious of Sorren than everyone else. He is sure that if Sorren weren’t a Zero, and he wasn’t a Ten, they would make lovely friends. In complete honesty, in the two times, he has ever spoken to Sorren, he actually finds himself quite liking him. He’s strangely witty, and a lot more morally corrupt than most would suspect. 

His mind seems to flutter around possibilities as to why Sorren would ever transfer here. He knew in his heart that the usual ego of higher ranked people hadn’t infected Sorren, he was good at reading that sort of thing from people. Sorren represented everything that had brought him down, made his life hell, made everything so much harder. So why didn’t that feeling of hate he had for all other higher numbers not apply to Sorren? Somewhere inside him, he knew, but he didn’t want to admit it. Something clicks, in the middle of class, and he wishes he had paper. He takes the pencil from his hair and scrawls on the edge of Sorren’s notebook a simple “I know why you’re here.” This seemed to be exactly what Sorren wanted and he beamed down at Lance, giving him a thumbs up. 

They could be on completely different wavelengths, but that statement about Lance’s position being dictated gave him a clue. Lance may not be exactly great at charisma, or interpersonal relationships, but he had read enough books to understand what Sorren was most likely here for. An allyship between the two most different sides of the world, working together against a common enemy. There were quite a few books he liked with a premise like that, which discussed the grey of human morality, and the corruption of those in power. Sorren must be able to see the gears working in his head because he leans over and whispers in his ear.  
“You’re on the right page, I have some...issues with the higher ranked.”  
Lance loudly scoffs, instead of laughing as he wants, then abruptly apologizes to the teacher. He gives Sorren a glare and he snickers in response.

They meet after classes that day, outside behind a very large oak tree.  
“So you’re telling me, a Zero decided to overthrow a terrible government system because he saw how terribly his enemy was being treated?” Lance asks in a confused, hushed whisper.  
Sorren nods, “Exactly. Well, I mean, it was a bit more than that. But that was the last straw.”  
“Even a worm will turn…” Lance mutters under his breath, folding his arms in a defensive position as Sorren laughs softly.  
“Mhm,” Sorren continues, speaking very seriously, “And I obviously need your help, I literally couldn’t do this without you.”  
“And why do you need me for your plan?” Lance shoots back, a defensive tone on the verge of bubbling into anger, “People have gotten off pretty well without me.”  
Sorren giggles at the potential second meaning of “getting off”, remember, he is a sixteen-year-old boy. Lance becomes almost instantly flustered.  
“I didn’t mean it like that, pervert! It’s just-” Lance shouts, cut off by a gentle hand on his shoulder which he doesn’t shrug away. Sorren’s voice morphs back to being cool and collected.  
“I know, I know. People have always treated you as an enemy, someone to avoid. I’m offering you my hand.” As he says it figuratively, he literally offers Lance his hand. The palms look soft and there’s a smattering of freckles along his fingers. 

“Your hand?” Lance questions, perplexed.  
“My hand. We could be friends.” Sorren adds with a loose, confident smile, that makes Lance’s stomach flip for reasons he would never admit.  
He takes his eyes off of Sorren and stares at the ground. “I don’t have any of those.”  
“I saw you with three people at lunch?” Is muttered back in a very confused voice. It was very cute, not that Lance would ever admit that.  
“They’re not my friends...just people I tolerate.” He responds.  
“So….” Sorren responds, obviously exasperated, “Friends.”  
“Shut up,” Lance fires back before down turning his voice to be softer. “But...fine. I’ll do your dumb plan. We aren’t friends though. I don’t like you.”  
Beaming, Sorren can’t help but tease him, “You do!”

**Author's Note:**

> wow. chapter one. h o w f u n. 
> 
> Definitely not gonna get Dark later. :).


End file.
